


Understanding Backwards

by ashes0909



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Title - Dates of Future Past, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Brooklyn Boys, Bucky Barnes Smoking, Bucky is sad, M/M, Marble Statues, Museums, Post-Civil War (Marvel), Steve is Fretting, Winning Prizes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-21
Updated: 2017-03-21
Packaged: 2018-10-08 16:35:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10391127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashes0909/pseuds/ashes0909
Summary: Now he was here, back in Brooklyn with Steve. If he closed his eyes and absorbed the smells from the kitchen, the sounds of Steve humming- it could almost be home.But then he opened his eyes.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hermit9](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hermit9/gifts).



> Happy Birthday Hermit! Thank you for your inspiration. I hope you enjoy, you wonderful human-being!

They were sharing an apartment in Brooklyn and that was supposed to be perfect, but instead it was 2017 and he was missing an arm. Outside the window was the park where he used to buy cigarettes but in place of the stand there was a coffee shop. He wanted a cigarette; Steve kept bringing him coffee. They’d been here for two months, ever since he decided to let Steve take him home instead of to Wakanda.

And it was home...in a way. Outside was the trail he used to take to the docks, where they used to setup the fair, where he caught Steve staring at his mouth a bit too long that one night. But he didn’t want to think about that, every time he did his stomach clenched uncomfortably. 

“Hey, Buck,” Steve called from the kitchen. “You okay with eggs and toast?”

He let the newspaper fall from his hand, it was supposed to keep him informed but often it did the opposite. 

He knew how to get around.  _ Shelter, water, food. _ As the decades passed, the storefronts changed, so did the advertisements and the design of the cars. But  _ shelter, water, food _ had remained the same. Politics, current events? That information Hydra had always provided for him when it proved useful to them (and removed it when it proved compromising). 

And now he was here, back in Brooklyn with Steve. If he closed his eyes and absorbed the smells from the kitchen, the sounds of Steve humming- it could almost be home.

But then he opened his eyes.

***

Steve watched Bucky eat like Hydra had removed his tastebuds along with his memories. The dash of paprika he’d added went unnoticed. So did the fruit Steve placed on the side of his plate. Bucky kept looking out the window. “Do you want to go outside today?” Steve asked, and winced as soon as the words came out. He wasn’t a caretaker, Bucky didn’t need a caretaker. He needed a friend.

“Maybe,” he replied, pushing around his food. “It’s been awhile since we went to the pier.”

Steve choked on his eggs. 

They hadn’t been to the pier since 1943. 

Bucky had made a joke. 

Right?

He pasted a smile on his face, and knew it looked awkward. “I’d say,” he agreed and Bucky narrowed his eyes, pinning him with an analytical stare that was more reminiscent of the Winter Soldier than he’d like- but that wasn’t right. There weren’t different parts of him, it was all him now, mixed up and scrambled just like the eggs he made. 

And here came the guilt. He shouldn’t think of Bucky’s brains like they were scrambled eggs. 

He should also probably stop staring at his piercing, narrowed eyes.

***

The pier hadn’t changed much. The benches still lined the water; Bucky thought that maybe the railing had been added between the benches and the water. It seemed like something this century would do, add extra safety precautions for dangers that were common sense. 

It still smelled like hot dogs and the fishermen’s prized catch of the day. 

Steve aimed for a bench that overlooked the water and the manhattan skyline. Bucky followed. Out of the corner of his eye he caught the woman making hot dogs staring at the pinned shirt where his arm should be. A part of him missed it but a larger part was happy to have one less reminder of Hydra. He could deal with a little staring.

“Come sit down,” Steve called over his shoulder, the afternoon sun catching in his eyes and he remembered decades ago, the same eyes, the same smile. Back then he would’ve gone up to Steve and tousle his hair, now…Steve seemed to big to tousle, there was too much strength to tease. Steve's arm was over the back of the bench and Bucky’s focus fell to the way his muscle stretched against his shirt. 

It was easier when Steve was someone Bucky had to protect. Easier to brush away urges he thought might fall outside the bounds of their friendship. But he couldn’t deny it, he still thought about how good it felt whenever Steve was near. 

Bucky slid into the seat next to Steve and felt his expectant stare on his face so he closed his eyes and soaked in the sun. A family laughed on the bench a few down from theirs. The woman selling hot dogs shouted her product to the world and he wondered why none of the hot dog vendors in the forties were run by women.

***

“It’s a pretty day, if you look towards the manhattan skyline.” Dark clouds rolled in, framing Bucky’s face. Steve would like to blame his friend’s faraway mood on the weather but knew he couldn’t. It was the Winter that took his friend from him, but not the one that came with dark clouds and snow. Steve looked towards the sun, tried to wrangle in his thoughts as Bucky remained silent. “You hungry?” he asked after a moment, to break the silence

Bucky shook his head, the corner of his mouth lifting into a smile and the little flicker of emotion was enough to fill Steve with a guarded joy. “You’re always trying to feed me, Stevie.”

His cheeks blushed at the accusation. He knew it was true, it had always been true. “The last time we were here you made me buy you  _ three  _ hotdogs,” Steve reminded him.

“The last time we were here,” Bucky leaned forward, a grin fully forming on his face. “You were full for a whole day off a single hotdog. Now you need what, five?” 

“Maybe,” Steve admitted.

Bucky laughed, before settling Steve with a raised eyebrow. “You always did like hot dogs.”

And Steve’s blush spread down his neck because the comment took him back to that day on the pier, when Steve had actually offered to buy Bucky as many hotdogs as he wanted. Bucky had said the same thing then,  _ You always did like hot dogs _ , followed by the same eyebrow wiggle and a jab to his ribs. Steve hadn’t understood the innuendo then, but he understood it now. 

He hadn’t understood, so he couldn’t ask Bucky if it was intentional and...well...now he understood but despite all the decades between them, Steve still wasn’t sure if Bucky knew just how much Steve liked...hot dogs. 

***

The clouds had taken over most of the sky, but Bucky didn’t want to leave. Steve wouldn’t push it and Bucky knew that, he even took advantage of it. That wasn’t the same as before. Before, Steve used to push all the time. He was a hooligan that always found himself in the middle of trouble, and when he had something to say to him Stevie never held back. 

Then he fell from the train. It had been cloudy that day too. Cold. Steve definitely wasn’t smiling then, not like he is now. And he would give his other arm to keep Steve smiling that way. 

Sometimes- like when they were sitting on the Brooklyn pier eating hot dogs while a kid next to them had a conversation through a video screen to someone across the globe- he wondered how they got here, both of them, to a place that was only familiar because they were together.

He leaned his head back onto Steve’s arm. The only response Steve made was to tousle Bucky’s hair before continuing his story. That was new too, yet a surge of contentment pushed away the cold in his chest. A raindrop landed on his nose. They both looked up, then at each other. “It might be time to go,” Steve said. And Bucky found himself not wanting to go back to their apartment. Not back to a place where Steve saw to his every need. Though he had finally limited the amount of times he asked Bucky if he was okay to less than ten per hour. 

He remembered that day they spent at the pier in the forties, and where they went next. A nearby museum that Steve had wanted to see. He wondered… “Let’s go this way,” he said to Steve before walking the opposite direction they came. He didn’t look back, he knew Steve would be following and soon he caught up to Bucky. 

The rain had started coming down more intensely and it stuck Steve’s shirt to his skin, to the muscles the serum had provided. God, the last time they had this walk Steve fit under his armpit. Now? He knocked Steve’s hip with his own. There may be differences now, from then, but this felt more normal than anything else had in a long time.

***

He let Bucky lead them to the museum. Steve remembered that day well, but the fact that Bucky did too was a pleasant surprise. He decided not to comment on it. Instead, he pulled the damp shirt from his skin and tried not to appear too shabby from the rain. Art was to be respected. 

The brownstone still looked small from the outside, and when they went in it opened up into a long room, just like before. Bucky paid the cover last time without even a thought because that was what Bucky did when they went out. Now, Steve stepped between him and the ticket booth with an intentional sidestep. He caught Bucky biting his lip around a smile. 

“What?” Steve asked, because the way Bucky’s eyebrows were waggling was begging to be questioned. “I’m not mother-henning you. I’m paying you back.”

“Whatever you say.” Bucky smirked then walked passed the ticket booth and down the steps that led to the ground floor of the museum. Steve paid, then followed.

“I’m able to buy a museum ticket for my best friend without it being some sort of charity!” 

“I know,” Bucky quipped, as he stopped in front of a statute. “Just like I did for you back then.”

“After ma passed, that might as well’ve been charity,” Steve murmured under his breath but Bucky still heard him, super-soldier hearing and all, and pinned Steve with the same glare he had received back then, whenever he mentioned how much the Barnes’s had helped him out. The similarities, all of them, were enough to fill Steve’s chest with so much emotion he felt like he couldn’t breathe. 

Then Bucky moved to the side and Steve’s thoughts were immediately forgotten as all the blood in his body rushed simultaneously to his cheeks and his groin. He hadn’t been expected the  _ Drunken Satyr  _ statue.

***

It wasn’t until after the war that Bucky even realized art could be indecent. He hadn’t seen much outside the comic strips in the papers until Stevie had gotten interested. And while he knew blue magazines existed, he never really thought paintings and sculptures could be erotic. 

From brothels to bloodbaths, he had seen some pretty indecent things in his time but the statute in front of him compelled even him to avert his gaze. It looked downright obscene. The marble man was sprawled out, his arms behind his neck, his legs open. He was completely naked. 

Steve pulled up to his side and unlike Bucky’s reaction, he actually leaned closer. Not just in general either, but Steve leaned straight between the marble legs. His head tilted it as if he was admiring the art, and knowing Stevie he probably was, but from his angle it just looked like he was going down on a marble man with abs that rivalled his own.

He lowered his eyes. When they were here last there was a bunch of blurry landscape paintings on the wall, and now there were naked men in stone. He was trying not to shuffle his feet as he considered just how open this century had become, when his eye found the card to the right of the statute. 

**_Barberini Faun_ ** ,  _ Fauno Barberini _ or  _ Drunken Satyr  _

_ Unknown Hellenistic sculptor _

_ Late third or early second century BC _

Guess it wasn’t  _ this  _ century's fault after all.

Steve all but climbed onto the the statue and he couldn't help wondering how if Steve were naked on top of the marble, they’d look almost identical. Both chiseled bodies inspired by humanity's obsession with beauty and strength. He had to turn away. He walked to the nearby painting of some old man’s face and counted in his head until the image and its effects started to fade.

***

Growing up, Steve’s day-to-day revolved around staying fed and keeping air in his lungs. He discovered art by accident, not that far from where he currently stood, in an old community center his ma sometimes took him too. It brought a beauty to his life, opened him up to figures from different times and different places. Paintings of battles and lovers, men and women. Every new piece of art Steve saw changed what he knew of humanity and the _ Drunken Satyr _ was no different. 

He remembered how his hands had gripped and creased the image, when he first saw a photo of this sculpture. Steve had to control the little strength he had in the face of such beauty. The man’s face, sculpted with eyes and mouth clear and relaxed. Open, and forever captured in marble.

He turned to share the moment with Bucky, but the man was gone and Steve straightened, looking for him. There were a few other people admiring the art but he found Bucky easily, standing at the far end of the room, looking at a painting but edging towards the door. He was uncomfortable. Or maybe tired. It had been a long day and they were supposed to return to their apartment hours ago.

There was a moment when Steve thought of just tugging the man’s arm to the exit and taking them back home, and then he saw what Bucky was staring at. It was a painting of two hands intertwined. Simple, small, no larger than a piece of notebook paper, but it was beautiful. The hands belonged to two men. One was calloused, dirt between his nails and skin broken on one of the knuckles. The other was softer, so pale it was almost pink, and looked smooth to the touch. 

The last time they were here, Bucky walked around with Steve tucked under his arm and it was normal, it was big brother Bucky and tiny troublemaker Steve. Up against Bucky’s side seemed normal, then. The thought of going up to him now and sliding their hands together, mimicking the painting-- no. It was silly to think that way. Bucky was his friend. He needed a friend. He brought Buck back from Hydra once, and he’d do it again. 

“Hey,” he began and even though Bucky must’ve known Steve stood near, he still startled at the sound. Steve didn’t mention it. Instead he pushed at Bucky’s shoulder and asked, “You know what else I remember from this place?”

***

Bucky hadn’t remembered the perch until he saw it. Last time, he hadn’t thought of it as more than a good view of the square across the street, but now he saw it for what it was- clear vantage points, good cover, a great view of the city. A sniper’s perch.

It was sunset the last time they were here, and the first memory he had was Steve backdropped by golds and pinks as the sun disappeared. He remembered thinking that image looked better than all of the paintings downstairs. Now the clouds had taken over the sky, and Steve was standing too close. His memory kept blurring from then to now, mixing the Steve from under his arm to the one crawling all over the marble and, man, he wanted a cigarette more than anything in the world right now. He wanted it so much he could smell it. 

“Guess that much hasn’t changed, if you can still smoke up here,” Steve commented as he leaned against the brick column that surrounded the balcony.

“What?” Bucky asked.

“Look.” He pointed discreetly to a couple of men around the corner of the wraparound balcony and Bucky was moving forward, fake smile fixed to his face, before Steve even lowered his arm.

He approached the two men- they looked to be the same age as him and Steve and wasn’t that a trip? The men looked up as he came closer and Bucky saw his opening. Bucky raised his voice to his most nonthreatening pitch. ““Hey man, I know it’s--”

“Would you like a cig?”

“God, yes, please.” And the man’s companion was chuckling and Bucky’s smile morphed into something real.

“I know that feeling well,” the man said as he held out the pack of cigarettes, his eyes flickered to his pinned sleeve then back to his face, smile never faltering. “Take two.”

“Thanks.” And Bucky didn’t care if the generosity was because the man understood how it felt to jones for nicotine or because of his broken body, he was just happy to put the stick between his lips and lean forward for the stranger to light it.

***

Steve forced his jaw to untense. Bucky smoked, it was one of the new things-- not something he could blame on the Winter Soldier, though, because this was all Barnes. But it was new in the sense that Bucky had picked it up during the War, and Steve still wasn’t used to it. 

He knew cigarettes were horrible and he hated it because of that, but he couldn’t deny the way Bucky looked while doing it. His lips wrap easily around the cancer stick, hair falling over his eyes as he cupped his hand around the tip of the cigarette and made sure it stayed lit enough for his first inhale. 

“We spotted the fair from up here last time,” Bucky said around his exhale. 

Steve’s eyes dropped from his friend’s face to the city below them. “You’re remembering more than I expected.”

“It helps,” he inhaled, “to be in the same places again.” He exhaled the smoke away from Steve, his lips pursing into an ‘o’ and Steve tried to remember if they normally looked so pink or if his friend had been biting on them more. He had the reckless urge to lean over and kiss that perfect mouth, wondering what might have happened if he’d taken Bucky’s hand downstairs, led him up here. Maybe he could have pushed away the cigarette and replaced it with his lips. His cheeks warmed at the fantasy and he tried to brush it away. Those thoughts weren’t real then and they weren’t here and now, either. Bucky had enough on his plate.

“Wish the fair was still around,” Bucky interrupted Steve’s thought spiral. “We could’ve gone there next. Wouldn’t mind beating you at the gunslinger game.”

Steve chuckled. “I guess you probably could beat me. Probably one of the few that could now, instead of just when I was four foot nothing. No dames to give the prizes to, though.”

A grin spread across Bucky’s face, one that reminded him of the way he looked before he flirted with his dates. “I’d find someone to give it to.”

And Steve shouldn’t feel the swoop in his gut, but he did. He should be used to Bucky chasing skirts. Everything he thought he saw, Bucky looking at him a little too long, the way he thought he was him staring at his abs in the rain-- it was all….made up. It only existed in Steve’s mind. 

Bucky looked at him now, smiling bright around the cigarette, leaning his arm carelessly against the balcony, and he looked happy. “The fair might be gone, but I know of a place we can win prizes,” Steve found himself saying, if only because he wanted to keep that expression on his friend's face as long as he could. Because that was what mattered. “Want to learn about arcades?”

Bucky took one last exhale of the cigarette in puff of smoke that lingered around his lips. When it dissipated, it took Bucky biting at his lip for Steve to realize he’d been staring. His eyes shot up to Bucky’s and the bastard actually winked at him. Steve’s stomach swooped again, but it was entirely different this time. 

“That sure sounds fun, Stevie. Lead the way.”

***

The rain came down in a steady drizzle now and by the time Steve led them around the corner to the arcade, their hair was stuck to their foreheads.

He didn’t need Stevie to tell him they had arrived. Painted red and covered in lightbulbs, the building glowed. As they ran to the the entrance, the rain picked up and lightning broke across the sky. Bucky felt like  _ ‘whooping’ _ , so he did. Steve laughed in response, lifting his arms to welcome the rain right there in the middle of the alley. 

Bucky shook his head like a dog when they made it under the overhanging awning, close enough that it sprayed all over Steve. He groaned and pushed at Bucky’s chest, then grabbed at his arm so he didn’t tumble into the couple that was exiting the arcade. 

A loud burst of noise and then silence again as the door shut. Steve reached for the hem of his shirt and Bucky watched as he twisted and wrung out the water, the fabric clenched in his hand, the sides of his stomach bared to the world and the marble statue from earlier had nothing on Captain America. “Uh, Buck- you okay?” Steve’s voice was laced with his infuriating caregiver tones. “You look a little flushed.”

“I’m fine,” Bucky said, wringing out his own shirt. “Just thinking about how much you and that naked marble statue have in common.”

“Wh- what?” 

Bucky laughed. “You okay? You look a little flushed,” he mimicked before opening the door into the arcade and letting the noise wash over them. Steve recovered quickly, rolling his eyes before he walked by Bucky while he held open the door. Bucky couldn’t resist following up his comment just to see Steve blush, and it was so similar to their taunts of before. But like so much else it was also so different. “You would’ve won a muscle contest against a marble greek god, Steve. How do you feel ‘bout that?” he yelled over the arcade machines by the door. 

As if on cue, Steve blushed again. “I’m pretty sure he’s just a minor mythological creature. And it’s the serum not me-”

Bucky reached out to grip Steve’s shoulder because his face had fallen and that wasn’t his intention at all. He leaned in close so he didn’t have to yell over the machines. “We’re both a little different than before, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t us anymore. Right?” He watched as Steve’s eyes flicked from his lips up to search his own. A small smile, because of course he’d be satisfied that Bucky said those words, it meant that he believed them. And maybe he did. Bucky grinned again, big and wide and real. “So, show me where we can win prizes.” 

***

Bucky pulled away first and Steve felt his heart race from his proximity. Over Bucky’s shoulder Steve saw a few girls pointing at them with excited smiles, holding up their hands in a heart shape. Neither Steve nor Bucky looked like superheroes, there was no way they knew Bucky was the Winter Soldier and he suspected they didn’t know he was Captain America, either. These girls weren’t providing a heart to superheros. The gesture was for Bucky and Steve because...the girls thought they were a couple. 

He knocked his hand into Bucky’s arm and gestured to the group and he knew they were both thinking of that gang of girls at the fair that called them queer for standing too close together. Bucky had just pulled him from another fight and was checking out a cut on his eye when Penny McAlistar from their apartment showed up with her friends.

“Any closer and you’d be kissing him, Barnes. He may be short but he ain’t a dame, or maybe you’re a little fruity,” she had jeered and he still remembered the cruel laugh that followed. An elderly couple who walked by on their way to the fair had laughed along. 

“Some changes are good,” Steve couldn’t help whispering towards a Bucky that still stood so close. 

Bucky looked back at him, with a half-quirked smile. “I got it, I got it,” he said, voice faking exasperation. “Tolerance is a nice, new development.” He waved at the group of girls that took up most of the car game chairs, and winked at the one who had made a heart out of her hands. “Show me some more good things the future has to offer.” 

Behind them was a stairwell that led to five other storeys. The first floor was painted entirely pink and filled with photo booths, the next one was painted black and each game had a different type of gun that shot at different screens. Bucky kept trying to look at them all as Steve led him to the next floor. 

Steve pushed him forward and Bucky staggered into a black booth. Steve slipped goggles over his eyes. “What?” Bucky began, until the screen flickered on and he was on a rollercoaster. “Whoa.”

“It’s virtual reality,” he heard Steve whisper into his ear. His firm grip wrapping around his shoulder again but this time pressing him down. “Sit.” The chair was plush and hummed under his legs and when the rollercoaster leaned back so did the chair, and he was in awe of it, knew his grin had turned slightly crazed but he had never been on a rollercoaster before. He heard the click, click of the wheels as they brought the rollercoaster higher and higher. His breath caught as they approached the top and curled over its edge. From somewhere behind him he heard Steve laugh at him but it didn’t matter because he was propelling downwards, his stomach bottoming out with exhilaration. The chair lurched him forward, then back spinning as he went over a loop in the tracks. Adrenaline shot through his veins that had nothing to do with fear or battle and Bucky loved it. 

After the rollercoaster returned to the platform, he pulled the goggles off his head and met Steve’s self-satisfied smirk.

“That was something else,” Bucky felt breathless, bold. “Come on, let’s go downstairs and I’ll win you a prize. Unless you wanna ride?” he asked, holding out the goggles. Steve blushed and it took Bucky a moment to figure out why. “You’ve been living with Stark and that Hawkeye for too long.” The remark earned him a smirk but his eyes still held a hesitance in them that Bucky wanted to see gone. “What?”

Steve’s shoulders straightened and he shook his head a little before meeting Bucky’s gaze. “I say you winning me prizes sounds like a great idea.” Steve swallowed and Bucky followed the rise and fall of his adam’s apple. When he had offered, it seemed like a perfectly normal idea. But it meant more. It meant more to Steve, and because of that it meant more to Bucky. 

He wondered how many times, back in the forties, Steve wanted to be the one Bucky won prizes for, the one Bucky kissed. “Buck?”

“Yea?”

He reached over and removed the goggles from Bucky’s hand. His hand hovered for a moment before brushing into Bucky’s hair and straightening the strands from the VR goggles.“I’m going to do something and you let me know if you want to deck me for it.”

Bucky felt the corner of his mouth lift into a smirk. “I think I know what you’re going to do.”

A small step forward and Steve was in his personal space. “Yea? And what do you think about that idea?”

Bucky took his own step forward, already knowing where this was going because despite all the changes, both then and now, he could still read Steve Rogers like a book. “I think it’s a pretty swell idea, Stevie.” 

And then he closed the space between them.

***

No matter where Steve fell in time or space, he would always remember his first taste of Bucky Barnes. His lips were rough from biting, the warm, sharp touch of their tongues and the way they both groaned when they slotted together perfectly.

He immediately wanted more and he was thankful they were in the small VR room because he could lean Bucky against the wall and kiss him as deeply as he wanted without anyone being any the wiser. It was like a dam had broken within him and now that he knew what he could have, he wanted even more. His hands came up, one wrapping around the back of Bucky’s neck and the other gripping at his shoulder, digging into the pinned fabric. 

Bucky broke the kiss to breathe which Steve couldn’t fault him for because breathing was important, so he let his mouth trail down Bucky’s neck until he earned another moan from the man. 

“The future,” Bucky began, gasping as Steve came back up and bit at his earlobe. “It’s good. Real good.”

Steve pressed his face into Bucky neck and laughed, breathing in his scent and letting it calm his remaining anxieties about his friend’s adjustment to the modern century, before pulling away. “You want to get out of here?” Steve asked, eager to continue kissing now that he knew he was allowed.

“No,” Bucky shook his head and slid his hand into Steve’s, leading him down the stairs to the shooting games. No one cared, no one stared, as they walked hand-in-hand to the back of the floor where an employee stood behind a counter full of prizes. 

Steve let go of his hand so that he could gesture to a large bear holding a Captain America shield. “What do I gotta do to win that one?”

The employee pointed across the way to a booth with a row of Thompson guns and targets with stars in the middle. “You just gotta shoot the bullseye.”

Bucky winked at Steve and he could really get used to that. “That shouldn’t be a problem at all.”

They both ignored the employee’s doubtful expression and Steve watched as Bucky picked up the gun with one arm and lifted it to the target. In three shots the star that formed the bullseye was shot off the target entirely. 

The employee held out the bear to Bucky who took it and with a wink, he handed it to Steve. As he gripped the bear he tried to think of another time since he was unfrozen, since before the serum, since before the war started, that he had been this happy. But he couldn't. 

****

They were sharing an apartment in Brooklyn and that was supposed to be perfect, but instead it was 2017 and he was missing an arm and that used to be enough to make Bucky want to throw the whole century into a fire. 

But now Steve was looking at him through lowered eyelashes, face half pressed into the silly bear and when Bucky offered his hand, Steve grabbed into it.

This century might not be half bad afterall.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! And thanks for the beta, Ferret :D


End file.
